


Illegally Blonde

by cosetties



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Weddings, and other people think so too, enjolras and cosette look a lot alike, femmejolras, self-indulgent Enjolras/Cosette brOTP stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2013-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-22 17:11:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/915871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosetties/pseuds/cosetties
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They meet in first grade, when Enjolras educates Cosette on social injustices and she kicks him in the balls to thank him. Enjolras should not be surprised that he falls in platonic love with his former assaulter - Cosette is sparkles and sunshine personified.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Illegally Blonde

**Author's Note:**

> I'm dedicating this to [Midnight](http://extravagantlygaygrantaire.tumblr.com/), from whom I stole headcanons. We're fellow members of the Femmejolras Appreciation Club, which is not a thing, but should be.

The thing about Cosette Fauchelevent is that she’s simply the most _coddled_ person Enjolras has ever met, so when he educates her on the injustices of the world at the ripe old age of six and a half , watching her eyes well up with tears, he’s caught between disgust and an overwhelming desire to comfort her.

It’s his new friend Courfeyrac who takes the choice away from him. He holds Cosette’s hand and gently pats her on the back, assuring her that no, it’s okay, Enjolras is an asshole to everyone, and she has full rights to kick him in the balls if she so wishes.

Enjolras scoffs. There’s no way this little girl can hurt him. Her doe eyes look unshielded, her pose relaxed. She hadn’t the strength to bear the facts about starving children in Africa, and inflicting pain on Enjolras would require a considerably greater amount of courage. Enjolras is formidable, he oozes scariness. He is a whirling bundle of revolutionary zeal with a cherry on top.

Nonetheless, Enjolras’s imposing nature doesn’t stop Cosette from kneeing him where the sun don’t shine, more quickly than he had anticipated. He doubles over in pain. 

Cosette recoils immediately, surprise coloring every feature. She gives her foot another experimental swing and gapes when it lifts off the ground. “I just kicked you.”

Enjolras groans, clutching at Courfeyrac, but the other boy moves away and sticks his tongue out.

Cosette looks like she’s about to burst into tears again. She flies to Enjolras’s side to grip him in a tight hug, apologizing into his neck. One day, Enjolras can claim credit for being the first in a long line of people who have been on the receiving end of Cosette’s take-no-shit attitude, but right now, Cosette’s hug hurts almost as badly as the kick, and Enjolras really doesn’t have time to contemplate his role as a plot point in Cosette’s character development.  

* * *

Their friendship is simple—the friendship of children with everything given to them at the slightest pout of their full lips and sullen pull of their blonde hair. Their relationship is one of sneaking books written for children much older than they, throwing paper airplanes at each other on hot summer afternoons, climbing the jungle gym on the school playground, falling off the jungle gym on the school playground.

If Enjolras is surprised to befriend his former assaulter, he doesn’t let it show. After all, Courfeyrac had tried to kiss him during naptime in kindergarten, and they’re still joined at the hip.

(He swears he’s in it for the cookies Courfeyrac’s mom bakes.)

* * *

Enjolras is ten when he meets Combeferre, or more accurately, he is ten when he decides Combeferre is his platonic soulmate, and they’ll remain friends until they’re old and their bones creak in time with their rocking chairs. 

Combeferre drops out of the sky with perfect timing and precision, landing when Cosette’s father starts distancing the girl from her friends and where he will be ensconced in a group of similarly-minded individuals.  Combeferre, Enjolras, and Courfeyrac form a trio almost immediately.

The summer sears blisteringly hot in Enjolras’s memory, marked by lemonade stand after lemonade stand. They save up money, one-dollar bills scrounged from sympathetic adults, and build up their piggy-bank. Enjolras has a vague notion of donating that money to charity somewhere along the line.

Cosette rarely leaves her house during the summer, though Enjolras sees her wandering around the park arm in arm with her father. She gives Enjolras a halfhearted wave whenever he passes, but even at age ten, Enjolras has acquired the reputation of a seasoned troublemaker, and Jean Valjean prefers his daughter cut all ties with the neighborhood rabble-rouser. 

One lazy summer night, he recruits Courfeyrac and Combeferre in his crusade to free Cosette from the shackles of parental care. The open window swings shut behind them, rattling against its frame. Cosette’s fingers don’t quite fit into the whorls and bumps of the tree trunk, so the trip takes her longer than it does the others. When she finally lands with an inelegant hop, a blush has diffused across her face.

“Thanks for waiting.” She looks down at her slipper-clad feet. “And for trying to get me out of here. I was about to go mad.”

Enjolras envelopes her in an awkward one-armed hug—Courfeyrac laughs in the background—and it’s like the whole summer hasn’t happened at all, that they’ve always been like this, Cosette defying her father’s wishes as Enjolras served as her reluctantly affectionate enabler.

They return Cosette to her house the next morning, and when Cosette’s front door flies open to reveal her father’s astonished face, she doesn’t look the least bit scared.  

Jean Valjean’s tolerance level for Enjolras increases exponentially after that.

Later, Enjolras ask her what she said to her father, to make him change his mind. In reply, she zips her lips and throws away the key.

* * *

Cosette and Enjolras have always been friends, but they’re not really _friends_ until a stranger on the street tells them that they look lovely together, asking them whether they’re twins or just sisters.

“We’re—we’re not,” Enjolras stammers out. Society dictates that he should reaffirm his masculinity, but when he notices Cosette’s sly glances to gauge his reaction, he answers with an easy, “We’re not related, but we’ve gotten that a lot.”

The lady coos.

Cosette hit her growth spurt earlier than Enjolras, and she towers over him by almost a foot. It’s always been a source of great consternation for the girl, but the reach to pat Enjolras’s head is easy now. “Be flattered, dear. Sharing my genes is the highest compliment.”

The next day, Enjolras borrows one of Cosette’s skirts as an experiment. Courfeyrac gets halfway through his proclamation of love for the new guy at school before he realizes the blonde in the swishy floral skirt is not Cosette and thus does not give two fucks about his lonely soul.   

* * *

When he is brutally rejected by a boy he’d had a crush on at their eighth-grade exit party, Cosette is the first one to pull him into her arms and offer comfort. It’d been his first real crush, a mild one, but first anythings always hit with bone-breaking punches.

Adam is the most wonderful boy he has ever met, Enjolras thinks, with his dark, curly hair, pale blue eyes, and slightly crooked smile. The moment he’d first noticed the other boy plays in a constant loop in his mind. Eighth grade spelling bee. April 10th. Adam had pronounced the word “bourgeois” with a decidedly contemptuous air before correctly spelling it, mouth carefully forming over the letters.

There had been something there, between Enjolras’s fascination with his lips and Adam’s lingering handshake. Something nebulous, but something with potential.

He is fourteen years old, and he is in love. He doesn’t know if it’s the feeling itself or the boy it’s attributed to, but the line between hurt and happiness keep blurring until the two coalesce to bite him in the ass. It comes back to him in flashes, irregularly timed. The disgust on Adam’s face when he had discovered Enjolras’s infatuation. The laughter when he had regaled his friends with the tale about the skinny, girly gay kid in the corner who thought he stood a chance.

Adam’s eyes had held a twinge of regret, and his cruelty came off as forced, but Enjolras really doesn’t fucking care enough to analyze.

“Shhh,” Cosette mumbles against his hair. “There will be other wonderful boys. Wonderful, smart boys who can rant about bourgeois oppression instead of just spelling the word. And when you meet him, he’ll be perfect for you, just your type.”

“I have a type?”

“Sure. Smart, good-looking—“

“Thinks I’m disgusting?”

Cosette clamps her hand more firmly on Enjolras’s shoulder and covers his hand with hers. They almost match in size. “No, when you meet him, he’ll think you’re the most wonderful thing in the world.”

* * *

It turns out the man in question is waiting for Enjolras in his freshman year of college, in the form of a borderline alcoholic roommate with a unique ability to make Enjolras want to rip his hair out. His hair rocks too, it’s fucking Rapunzel-level awesome, so Grantaire is contributing to the destruction of a fairy tale, thanks. 

Enjolras’s first, second, hundredth impressions of Grantaire are anything but wonderful. He talks back when he should keep silent. He wastes his potential on cynicism and alcohol. He doesn’t even fit into Enjolras’s _type_ , as Cosette dubbed it. Every man Enjolras had found himself passingly interested in has known what he wants out of life.

Grantaire revels in drifting where the wind takes him. He defies expectations, with his seemingly useless interruptions that spin into educated rants on the futility of life.

“Do you think you’ll ever believe in anything?” Enjolras asks, quietly, when they’re both cooling down from an argument about school tuitions. It had been a big one, starting out small and exploding into larger proportions with each deliberate barb thrown across the room.

Grantaire’s eyebrows lift, and he meets Enjolras’s gaze steadily. “I think I already believe in something.”

Enjolras pretends not to understand. 

* * *

Courfeyrac had pointed it out first, as they sat at a coffeeshop catching up after a summer apart, and honestly, Enjolras shouldn’t have been surprised. All the potential had been there, and it made sense that her father’s overprotectiveness had held Cosette back, kept her from blossoming.

Enjolras had never expected Courfeyrac’s observation to be so frank though, an appreciative “you got hot” said over cappuccinos.

And he certainly never expected Cosette’s newfound hotness would actually matter.

Enter Marius Pontmercy. Eighteen. Shitty political opinions. Means well, but spends more time dreaming than acting.

Marius and Cosette are goddamn _perfect_ for each other, hell, Marius even gets along with Cosette’s friends. They fall in love like so many romantic fools—in one glance—but their story is destined for a different path, one more permanent than the fickle flow and ebb of regular relationships.

Cosette has less time to spend with Enjolras now, but even he knows this is a childish thought. The churning in the pit of his stomach refuses to go away, and the mounting dread causes him to leave phone calls and texts unanswered until they pile up, threatening to bowl him over.

* * *

The banging of the door as it hits the wall rouses Enjolras from much-needed sleep, and he has half a mind to roll over and ignore Grantaire until he realizes Grantaire is _silent._

Grantaire always enters room in a flourish, a sarcastic remark on his lips. But now, he moves around their dorm room in a daze. Robotically, Grantaire picks up various objects before setting them down again. His sketchbook. His Stark Trek action figures. His phone.

He makes his way across the room slowly, examining the paraphernalia on the way. When he slumps forward near Enjolras’s bed, the blonde anticipates it, springing up to meet him. His limbs sag into Enjolras’s arms, and the younger man staggers back under Grantaire’s weight.

“Thanks,” Grantaire says, surprise evident in his voice. Enjolras has made it clear he only tolerates Grantaire’s presence, and less than that when he has had too much to drink. He smells like a distillery now, but the fog of alcohol hasn’t numbed his mind yet. There is pain in his eyes.  

“You okay?” Enjolras asks roughly.

Grantaire straightens up and clears his throat, rearranging his clothing. Enjolras feels cold.

“Parents. You know the drill.”

Enjolras clocks the dried tear tracks on his face and disagrees. He reaches out, but Grantaire jerks his arm back. “Do you—“

“I’ll be fine,” Grantaire insists. He plops himself down on his bed and slides his sketchbook out of his backpack. This is his way of dealing, frantically sketching his emotions onto paper. He draws not shapes and figures but emotions, turning anger into a kind of tortured beauty.  “Really. It’s not like they’re wrong anyway.”

“But they are,” Enjolras says, because he’s seen Grantaire beat him in quote wars, he’s seen the look on his face when he finally finishes a painting he can display without shame.

Grantaire is infuriating. He’s drunk and cynical with too many demons to ever qualify as a well-adjusted member of society. Grantaire will never be more than what he is, but he is already so much more than his bad qualities, no changes needed there. No, Grantaire will never be more than what he is, but he will be more than what he seems to be.

That’s when Enjolras knows.

* * *

His ill-advised feet drag him to Cosette’s, and before he has a chance to reprimand them, he’s ringing her doorbell.

“Where have you been?” Cosette instinctively moves to wrap her arms around Enjolras but falters instead. She’s still in a bathrobe, and her hair lies in a messy halo around her head. The blonde strands stick out in every direction.  “Have you been avoiding me?”

Enjolras shakes his head as Cosette draws him into the apartment by the wrist. She shoves him onto her couch and pushes a cup of coffee into his outstretched hand, nearly spilling it in the process.  Settling next to him, she burrows into his side.

“Did you finally figure out you’re in love with Grantaire?”

Enjolras blushes, fiddling with his hair. He hadn’t had time to tie it back into a ponytail today, he rushed out of his room so quickly. He’s still wearing pajamas, for God’s sake.

“I may have,” he says vaguely, but Cosette bursts into giggles and pulls him in closer. Her thin arms bracket him as he resists the urge to flee. Enjolras rarely talks boys with Cosette—they have completely different tastes, even on the rare occasion when Enjolras looks. But it’s always been an unspoken agreement that they _would_ talk to each other if the situation ever arose.

Cosette’s face falls when this thought occurs to her. “I haven’t been there for you through this. There must have been some buildup I was supposed to be there for. You didn’t suddenly come out of nowhere and decided—“

“But I did.”

“You can’t do love like a normal person, can you?”

“Not normal,” he corrects, “just typical.”

“You’ve been avoiding me,” she repeats then, and this time there’s no questioning lilt to her words. “Marius is,” she blows a strand of hair away from her face, “Marius is great. I love Marius. But my being with Marius doesn’t mean you have to alienate yourself.”

Though she doesn’t say the words out loud, the _I missed you_ is evident on her lips.

Reaching over to the coffee table, Cosette snags a couple of elastic hairbands and offers them to Enjolras. “Braid my hair?”

Enjolras has never put much effort into his personal appearance, but if there’s one thing he can do, it’s braid hair. Cosette hates doing it herself—she undoes the braid at least ten times before she declares the twists and turns of her hair sufficient for public display. Enjolras, by contrast, braids hair like he foments revolution—all straightforward passion and deliberation. His own hair stays in a messy ponytail at the nape of his neck, but this is tradition for them, a mix of apology and wordless bonding time.

He runs his fingers through Cosette’s hair to untangle the knots, and when she leans into his touch, the churning in his stomach fades.

* * *

The words come out in a rush as soon as Enjolras’s feet hit the floor of his dorm room. Grantaire jolts up, staring at him with bewildered eyes.

“Hi, I think I’m in love with you, and I think you’re in love with me too, so we should go out. I suggested we could take down oppressive government institutions together, but Cosette warned me that may be too heavy for a first date, so I suggested dinner.”

Grantaire narrows his eyes. “Are you screwing with me?”

“No.”

Grantaire scrutinizes him for a moment, his eyes running over Enjolras’s stubborn face and his determined stance. Enjolras shifts back and forth on the balls of his feet under the weight of Grantaire’s gaze.

“Are you sure?” Grantaire’s voice is calm, but he is stripped bare in front of Enjolras, and one word—just a small misstep—can strike him down.  

“Yes,” Enjolras answers. “So, dinner?”

Grantaire breaks out into a grin. “You’re going to have to woo me first, dear, I’m not that kind of boy.”

* * *

Grantaire tells Enjolras that he is all kinds of wonderful, and Enjolras breathes at least ten better synonyms into Grantaire’s hair. The words run together after a while.

Sensational. Superb. Remarkable. Grantaire.

* * *

The obligatory double date happens six months into Enjolras and Grantaire’s relationship.

Enjolras protests and whines and complains. Enjolras and Grantaire rarely have date night at all, and definitely not with Marius and Cosette. He doesn’t have a problem with Marius, really, but the prospect of spending two or three hours in a fancy restaurant with no chance of escape leaves him wanting to choke himself with his tie.

When they settle down, Enjolras and Cosette immediately lean toward each other. Their hair mingles, straight hair contrasting with Enjolras’s wild curls.

Grantaire buries his face in his hands. “Your hair should not be legal. Seriously, who has hair that nice?”

Enjolras and Cosette wear identical smirks.

* * *

Enjolras rests his head against Grantaire’s chest as the tear-inducing strains of Courfeyrac’s singing infiltrates their bedroom sanctuary. He is light and slim, and his weight hardly has any effect on Grantaire at all. He lies half-on, half-off Grantaire. The apartment they’d gotten together the year before was meant to offer them much-needed peace and quiet. Enjolras had forgotten, of course, that their friends are little shits.

Nope, Courfeyrac isn’t going to ruin this night, no matter how determined his rendition of Best Song Ever is. To the sound of off-key One Direction, Enjolras presses an open-mouthed, filthy kiss to Grantaire’s lips. Grantaire returns the favor, and their tongues twine together. Grantaire’s hands press against his lower back, pushing Enjolras in so that he can envelope him in warmth and the smell of paint and whiskey.

“Grantaire, what are you doing with Cosette?” The door slams against the wall, and Marius stands in the doorway gaping. The light from the hallway frames his silhouette. “I didn’t even know you liked kissing girls.”

“Fucking shit,” Enjolras swears. He shields his eyes from the light and levels a glare at Marius. Grantaire chortles underneath him, and Enjolras shuts him up by kneeing his stomach.

Marius’s face turns a deep shade of red. The goldfish look isn’t too attractive on him, either.

“Um, this is Enjolras,” Grantaire pipes up, but Enjolras doubts Cosette has ever glared with this kind of murder in her eyes, ever, so the clarification is unnecessary.

Enjolras flings a discarded shoe at Marius’s retreating back, but it hits the closed door instead, falling to the floor in a flop.

* * *

When Marius asks Cosette to marry him, she runs to Enjolras first. The ring on her finger is the perfect in-between between big and small, simple and extraordinary. Enjolras has never had any intention of getting married, but seeing Cosette’s face suffused with this _glow_ , that may be enough marriage-related joy for the both of them.

He asks her if she wants him to do her hair for the wedding.

She hits him.

“Look, I let you braid my hair because you’re a fantastic friend and all, but you tend to rant when you’re in the hair-braiding zone.” Before he can protest vehemently, Cosette shushes him. “You don’t notice it, but I now know every issue you have with the NSA. In detail.”

Cosette gets her hair professionally done.

* * *

Maybe it’s the rom-coms Cosette has forced him to watch, but instead of following Cosette’s movement down the aisle, Enjolras’s eyes fix on Marius. He looks like he’s about to keel over any minute now, his face as white as a sheet. His lips turn blue from pressing too hard, and he clenches his hands into fists convulsively. In spite of this, there is nothing in his expression that betrays regret. Marius the dreamer, on the brink of having one of his biggest dreams come true, is a mess—a _determined_ mess.

Cosette touches his hand when she reaches him, just a little nudge with the tip of her finger, and offers him a small half-smile.

“Hi,” Cosette says.

Marius’s face lights up, and the tension drains out of him. In seconds, he goes from scared groom on his wedding day to someone who actually knows what he’s doing.

“Hi,” he answers.

Their vows are beautifully written with the obligatory jokes and messy metaphors, but this moment, just two people exchanging greetings, sticks out in Enjolras’s mind the most.

* * *

Grantaire has already taken advantage of the open bar. Courfeyrac sways unsteadily next to him, but Grantaire’s tolerance is greater. His mind is clear and his movements are sober when he greets Enjolras with a chaste kiss on the lips and a whispered promise about how he’ll take his tux off later when they manage to find some time alone.

“Hi,” Enjolras says when he pulls away. Never before have two words been so hard to force out before. He loops his pinkie finger around Grantaire’s.

The other man stays silent, and shit, Enjolras is being too obscurely romantic for his own good. This is such a Jehan move, there is a reason there is only one Jean Prouvaire, _goddammit._ He is just about to extricate himself from Grantaire’s embrace and apologize for barely-there parallels when the reply comes.

“Hi.”

**Author's Note:**

> i'm [cossetcosette](http://cossetcosette.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. :D


End file.
